


Ollie Meets Bagel

by thedishandthespoon



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pre-Relationship, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Skateboarder Bucky Barnes, Skateboarding, Steve Rogers-centric, Steve has decided that bagels are the pinnacle of 21st century NYC living, and I don't exactly disagree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25964869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedishandthespoon/pseuds/thedishandthespoon
Summary: He was a skater boy, Steve said let's get bagels, boy.Steve wants to start doing this twenty-first century thing properly. He gets help in the form of skateboarding, skateboarders, bagels, and Sam Wilson.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 25
Kudos: 156





	Ollie Meets Bagel

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, my first fic! Disclaimer: I know nothing about skateboarding. Also, to make the sk8r boi thing work, Steve should probably be a dancer. But I feel like prancing around and fighting in tights is close enough? 
> 
> Tag recommendations are very welcome :)

Sometimes when Steve can’t sleep, he goes outside and runs until even his superpowered body starts to feel the strain. He’ll leave long before the sun rises, early enough that it’s still nighttime and the more committed club goers and bar hoppers still have yet to return home. He feels a kinship with them, these people who are also avoiding the oppressive quiet that engulfs a household of one in the middle of the night.

On his runs, Steve has always explored Brooklyn. Sometimes he heads west, towards his old neighborhood, still rather industrial and still rather run down. Sometimes he heads south, all the way down Ocean Parkway to Coney Island, and catches the sun rising behind Luna Park. Always, he heads to an area that he has been to at least once before. Places where his serum-sharpened memories overlay images of his mother pushing through crowds with a bag from the grocer’s or of his brief time selling from a pushcart on the Coney Island boardwalk.

Today, though, Steve imagines running near the docks in Red Hook just to remember the clamor and desperation that had engulfed the Tin City shacks where a giant IKEA now sits, and the thought makes him sick. He loves Brooklyn, will always love Brooklyn, but he is tired of his compulsion to catalog each and every change, each and every loss, in this borough that holds most of his life’s memories.

Today, Steve heads north.

He runs up to the Brooklyn Bridge, turns onto the footpath, and runs towards Manhattan without looking back. The skyline shines bright before him, glittering where it reflects off the East River. He reaches the end and heads south, along the water. Battery Park arrives much more quickly than he’d expected it to, and as soon he gets past the ferry terminal and onto the promenade, he looks across the open water and sees the Statue of Liberty lit up before him. The realization suddenly strikes him that he’s never been here before. He’s seen the statue in the distance from the Brooklyn docks, but never this iconic view. All this time in the city, now and then, and there’s so much that he hasn’t done or seen. He has brooded over the passage of time and has tortured himself endlessly with all the things he once knew and has now lost, but he hasn’t thought about everything else that is now available to him.

As he runs along the water, Lady Liberty to his left and the still-lit city to his right, he realizes that this park and this statue were here his first time around. She, just another symbol for this country to weild, has watched the city go through far more iterations than he ever will. He hasn’t seen her not because she is new or was lost but because they were poor, because he was too busy trying to stay alive, because taking a trip into Manhattan to be a tourist would have been laughably extravagant.

But he can do that now. He can see anything, new or old, that he wants to see. Midtown has been mostly restored since the Manhattan Crisis and he has left SHIELD headquarters for his own Brooklyn apartment, yet all he has done with his growing free time is prowl the nighttime streets for memories like a subway rat emerging for scraps. In the light of day, Steve Rogers scuttles back inside and hides away behind Captain America.

Steve rolls his shoulders and shakes out his arms. He runs on. Heads north and onto the Greenway and can’t believe he’s still in New York City. There are trees along both sides of the path and after a few blocks, there isn’t even a street at his side, only the path. The sky is beginning to lighten.

He left something heavy behind on those Battery Park paths. He had been clinging to some parts of his grief just for the familiarity and the comfort but finally, back there, he let them slip away and into the Hudson. He’ll always have pain and loss and anger, but it might be time for him to stop defining himself by them.

Given these early morning revelations, it’s serendipitous that today is the day that he first encounters the skatepark.

He doesn’t know to call it a skatepark when he first sees it, of course. As he has run, he has been choosing the paths that hug the water when they are available, appreciating the open view of the gray pre-dawn sky, gentle above the wide river. So after passing the sprawling complex that is Chelsea Piers, he takes the path towards the water and onto the pier. And right in the middle of it, amidst the thicket of trees to his left, is a strange, fenced-in area. He almost writes it off as one of many abandoned lots in the city, but it is far too intentionally formed. He slows to a walk around the perimeter, curiosity getting the best of him.

The lot is covered entirely in concrete that is at once undulating and geometric. In some places it is gentle slopes and curved edges and in others it is covered in blocky triangular and rectangular projections. Much of it is sunken into the ground, but one end is dominated by a particularly deep crater, like an empty and misshapen pool. The entire space could have come from a Dalí painting. Steve can’t imagine what on god’s green earth it might be used for. An obstacle course, perhaps? He notes the location and plans to google it once he gets home. He turns away and begins to run again.

As he continues north, the gray sky begins to turn blue as the sun rises beyond the city. He is now sharing the path with the odd runner and biker and the traffic at his right is picking up. He is feeling some exertion. He also can’t stop wondering. In Manhattan, where there is nothing more sacred than land, what about that odd, large space could possibly be important enough to warrant its existence? He had planned to go further uptown then to cut across the island, but when he gets up past 50th street, everything becomes ugly and urban again. The path thins, the trees give way to street, and the river is obscured by cruise terminals. He isn’t ready to give up beauty to the city yet, and so decides to turn back the way he came. Back past the strange lot.

As he runs back downtown, the sky is taking on a pink hue and the few clouds in the atmosphere are reflecting the red of the obscured sunrise. More and more people are joining him along the path. He draws in a deep breath of the cool morning air and lets it out slowly, recognizing that he now is just another runner doing an early morning workout. He tries to view himself as a twenty-first century New Yorker beginning his day with some healthy activity instead of a displaced relic attempting to run from his problems. It’s freeing. He could be one of those New Yorkers who runs and then stops for bagels on the way home, someone who has to bring home a few of them in a bag along with a tub of cream cheese instead of a single toasted one just for himself. Maybe someone who meets a friend at the bagel shop and grabs one of the little tables out front. Possibly even someone who goes on a date to a bagel shop and enjoys the other person so much that they don’t mind the ridiculous lines that snake out of every famous bagel shop.

Steve fantasizes so hard about bagels and normality that he almost forgets to turn back onto the pier at 22nd Street. At the last minute he does, and is so surprised that this time, he comes to a complete halt.

There are people within the fencing now. It is still early, so it is only a scattered few, but they are all moving across the concrete and over the various obstacles on skateboards. Steve is fascinated.

Steve knows about skateboards. He’s seen kids zoom through the park on them, kicking the small boards forward with one foot before planting both firmly and weaving precariously through crowds. He has also seen the adults who speed down busy streets on the electric versions, a loud whir the only warning before they recklessly zip past on busy streets. Steve is intrigued by both and has noted them as yet another interesting twenty-first century detail, but he hasn’t really thought about them beyond that.

These skateboarders, though. Steve steps up to the fencing to get a better look.

They glide effortlessly over the rolling concrete, their boards an extension of their bodies. They also are using the various obstacles and formations to perform tricks. Steve watches them jump and spin and flip their boards mid dair and suddenly he becomes the old Irish woman who lived across from his and his Ma’s apartment in the 20’s; with every stunt, he has to hold back the urge to gasp and clutch at his chest in fear.

Because yes, Steve regularly participates in active combat, will jump from high places and cross his fingers that one of his flying teammates will catch him, is unfazed (well, mostly unfazed. Somewhat unfazed) when said teammates are similarly reckless. But these civilians? The ones speeding down these ramps on tiny wheeled contraptions and then sailing back to the other side? The ones whizzing towards large obstructions and then jumping up at the last moment, their skateboards twirling beneath them, before landing with everything impossibly in the correct orientation? They are going to give Steve the heart attack that he definitely should not be able to have. When one of them lands awkwardly in the deepest crater, her board flipping and sliding down, Steve gasps and takes a step towards the lot’s entrance. But the rider simply slides down the side and hops to her feet. She jogs to her skateboard, flips it right side up with her foot, then hops back on. Her two friends cheer at her as she keeps on riding.

Steve’s heart is pounding faster than it had at any point during his run. The closest things he can think of to what he’s watching are some of the acts from circuses he read about as a kid. But those performers were professionals. People risked their lives all the time when he was young, of course; life in the twenty-first century has been a series of realizations that this or that thing which used to be standard is actually very dangerous and is no longer allowed. But those risks were usually to make a living, or in the name of war, or because people just didn’t know better. Everyday people weren’t outside participating in high adrenaline activities just for the fun of it.

And yes, fine, Steve is self-aware enough to admit that he has an adrenaline problem of his own. He also knows conceptually that people now do things like sky-dive and bungee-jump. And yet, something about this activity in particular is making the watching an adrenaline rush on its own. He has never done anything like it, has no frame of personal reference for these feats. His heart has been in his throat the entire time.

Steve watches through the fencing as the sun rises above the buildings and begins to fill the space with bright light. A few other people join, including one person on rollerblades, but the original group of three still remains. His heartbeat has steadied as he’s realized they have falling down to as much of a science as the skateboarding itself, but he’s still awed by the whole thing. One rider in particular is a complete maniac, and Steve can’t look away.

He seems to prefer the deep pool, surfing along the sides to pick up momentum before speeding down and up the other side to do tricks. Steve almost swallows his tongue when he rides to the top and does a one-handed handstand on the rim. He also does full on spins through the air that seem to defy every law of physics. Steve is mesmerized.

Steve is also mesmerized by the man’s thick, dark curls, which fall beneath his helmet and stream behind him as he moves. He’s wearing a gray shirt and patterned, cotton shorts that are rather ugly but he also has beautiful geometric tattoos on his left arm and an easy grin that makes Steve’s heartbeat pick back up. When the man rides close enough to the fence for Steve to see his stunning brown eyes, Steve’s stomach swoops like a skateboard mid-jump.

At that moment, the redhead who’d first freaked Steve out by falling calls out and breaks Steve’s revelry. He brings his hands down from where he’s raised them to cling at the fencing. Jesus. He runs his hand through his hair, writes the swooping feeling off as impending starvation, and gets back to his run.

He stops for bagels on the way home.

+++

After seeing that skatepark (and googling to learn that it is called a skatepark), Steve begins to see skaters everywhere. Not just people riding skateboards, but people speeding through the park and jumping over benches. Kids rolling over courtyards and sliding down stairway banisters. Some of it hasn’t looked particularly safe for passersby, and he’s always prepared to sprint and pull a pedestrian out of the way of an errant board, but he does feel like an entire world has become visible to him. A world that is so unlike anything he’s ever encountered that he finds it comforting.

And he still goes back to the skatepark on the pier.

He’s tried going at different times of the day, has seen it on weekends when it is packed and on weekday afternoons when there are lots of tiny, adorable, kids. He saw some older guys on a Thursday evening and a group of teenage girls that come after school a couple days a week. But soon he realized that first trio comes regularly on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and he then developed a routine of his own.

Namely, he runs to the park on those days, creeps on them through the fence until he begins to feel guilty, then runs home. He’s still leaving at ungodly hours, but the number of night runs per week has reduced dramatically, and they don’t often take him through Brooklyn. Something about his awareness of skateboarding has pulled him solidly into this century and centered him here like nothing else. He’s even begun drawing again, and if his work has become somewhat of a study on skateboarding (and possibly a certain skateboarder), well, he’s been trying to indulge himself. He gets Sunday brunch with Sam and Wanda on non-mission weekends, and he has discovered the joys of the halal cart near his apartment.

He’s doing well. Really well. And if that improvement requires a bit of stalker-ish behaviour regarding a certain group of skaters, so be it.

And the thing is, they’re good. Now that he knows more about the sport and has seen many other people skate, he has a solid frame of reference. And these three are some of the best he’s seen in the park. They’re around his age and each have a different style of skating. The redhead spends a lot of time on the rails and blocky formations on the far end of the park. She does amazing things in the large bowl, but seems to work at it only so she can show other guys up in there before returning to the street formations. The other skater loves to wear plaid and seems to like everything. He and the redhead seem to be dating, and Steve definitely didn’t feel relief at that sign that the third skater probably wasn’t dating either of them.

Because then there’s the third skater. Who is a goddamned showoff. He’s constantly in the deep bowl, catching air for spins or throwing his hands out for handplants. Steve has seen him in the other areas a few times, but there’s a reason he stands near the deep end, and that reason begins and ends with this man with the ugly shorts and the beautiful smile and the most ridiculous, showy moves that still leave Steve gasping each time.

And even those things wouldn’t have been enough to make Steve this horribly, embarrassingly, enamoured (probably) if it weren’t for Tuesday mornings. Because Thursday mornings are for practicing tricks, and those leave Steve all sorts of hot and bothered, but on Tuesdays come the kids. Two of them, around ten years old, and Bucky works with them every week. The kids are ridiculously good, jumping insanely high and popping right back up if they tumble to the ground. They work with the other two skaters as well, but with Steve’s skater the most closely.

Between the impossible stunts and heartstopping falls and utterly adorable interactions with children, Steve isn’t sure that his heart will make it. But week after week he comes back because he is physically unable to stop. Or he thinks he would be, if he cared to try. Because really, he has no desire to. Steve has been doing so well the past couple months, and maybe the fact that it’s in large part because of a man that he has never spoken to should bring him shame, but he’s not even the only one who watches at the park! And sure, most of those people are inside the fence and not there almost before the sun is, but still. He’s doing well, and he knows that Sam and Wanda are proud of him, and he’s gonna take what he can goddamned get.

Which is all well and good when the only person he’s trying to convince is himself. When Sam becomes suspicious of his newfound awareness of skateboarding, asks a few innocent questions, and Steve promptly spills everything immediately because he is incapable of lying to his best friends? Well, that’s a different story.

“So you have never spoken to this guy.” Steve blushes and shakes his head. “You just stand here. Watching him through this fence.”

Steve doesn’t know how they ended up here. Sam had gotten him talking about it all after training yesterday, then had pointedly mentioned that he sometimes runs down along the Hudson as well, and the next thing Steve knew, he was inviting him to come watch. Steve is a complete and utter idiot.

Steve blushes and stares into the park at Sam’s comment. The three skaters had been riding as usual a few minutes ago, but are now standing at the other end of the park, huddled and talking. Sam seems to realize what he said and how he said it.

“Hey, no, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Steve raises his hand to the back of his neck, bashful. “I know it’s stupid, it’s just—”

Sam cuts him off. “Steve, no, I really didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that you’re,” he gestures vaguely at Steve. “And I think skaters are a pretty chill crowd, you know? You could just say hi.”

Steve gives him an incredulous look and then turns back towards the park. Being here with someone else is filling him with all the shame that he has been keeping at bay for the past couple months.

He sighs deeply. “God Sam, what am I doing?” He’s been coming here for months. They had to have noticed him by now. They must be so freaked out. What is he doing?

Sam turns to face him. He must see the panic on Steve’s face because his face softens. Then takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders back like he’s going into battle.

“Alright, Steve. Just know that after what I’m about to do, you’re gonna owe me so much, man.” Sam ignores Steve’s incredulous look, turns, and makes his way towards the entrance to the park.

“Sam. Sam!” He’s whisper yelling. “Where are you going!”

Sam continues to the entrance. Goes into the park. Steve stands and gapes after him before scrambling to follow.

“Sam! I don’t want to say hi!” He’s still whispering and it is not proving effective. Sam ignores him. They walk past the shallower bowl and then across to the other side. The trio have noticed them now and are blatantly staring. Steve wants to die.

Once they’re within speaking distance, Sam throws out his arms in an expressive and highly uncharacteristic way. “Duuude!”

The skaters keep staring. Steve attempts to hide behind Sam, who barrels forward. He addresses the redhead, which seems like a death sentence. “That last rail trick! In with a nollie, out with a front foot impossible? What! That was fuckin’ clean.” She has her arms crossed and is leaning against the fence, her left foot up on her board. Steve doesn’t know what the hell is happening. She cracks a smile.

“Thanks, man. You skate out here?”

Sam shrugs. “Nah, I’m uptown. Hear this place has a smooth bowl, though.”

The redhead nods. “Yeah, it’s pretty sick.” She tilts her head towards Steve. “You friends with our number one fan over here?” Steve can actually feel all the blood in his body rush to his face. She grins wickedly.

Sam laughs and claps Steve on the shoulder. “This is my boy Steve. He’s taken an interest in... the sport.” This is awful. Sam holds a hand out. “I’m Sam.” The redhead slaps his hand with hers and they do something complicated that involves a fistbump.

“I’m Nat. This is Clint, and Bucky.” She gestures first at the dirty blonde and then at Steve’s—the other skater.

Who’s name is Bucky. Steve knows his name now. His helmet is off and his hair is slightly sweaty, some of his loose curls sticking against the side of his face, the rest tumbling down to his shoulders. He catches Steve’s eye and raises his chin at him in greeting. Steve tries not to swoon.

“Your boy skate too?” Bucky addresses Sam but doesn’t take his eyes off Steve.

Sam laughs. “Nah, man. He prefers contact sports.” Steve tries to glare surreptitiously at a rather smug looking Sam but is too busy drowning in Bucky warm eyes for it to be successful. “I haven’t skated much lately either, just had to say something about that sick run.” Who is this man and what has he done with Sam? That’s what Steve wants to know.

Bucky drops his board, which had been propped up on his foot, to the ground. “Rad, man. You should come join our next sesh.” He nods at Steve and then claps Clint on the back and tips his head towards the exit. “We gotta get to the shop, but it was sick meeting you guys.” He smirks at Steve. “Nice to put a name to a pretty face.” Steve’s heart skips a beat.

Nat and Clint each grab backpacks off the ground. Nat elbows Bucky and raises her eyebrows, but he just glares at her and kicks off the ground once before gliding away. Steve stares after him. Nat rolls her eyes and starts to follow, but puts her foot down to stop her board and turns back.

“Oh, and groupie.” Steve, embarrassingly, acknowledges that moniker right away. “If you really wanna see Bucky skate, you should head to Chinatown tomorrow morning. The park under the Manhattan Bridge. Maybe you’ll even talk to him next time.” With one last nod, she hops onto her board, drops into the bowl, and speeds to the other side to meet the others. They exit and Sam and Steve are left alone in the park.

“Oh my god.” Steve sounds dazed. Suddenly, his sanity returns and he whips his head towards Sam. “Sam, what the fuck!” he hisses.

Sam smirks at him and starts walking towards the exit. “I think you just got yourself a date, pretty boy.”

Steve jogs to catch up to him. “Since when do you skateboard?” He’s trying to sound serious, but then he thinks about what Sam actually said and Nat’s parting words and Bucky’s words and a large grin is covering his face. “Wait, why did he say that? And why does she think I want to go see Bucky?”

Sam gives him an unimpressed look. “Maybe because you’ve been drooling at the man through a fence for weeks.” Steve shrugs, now feeling rather magnanimous.

“I’ve been observing a sophisticated sport and my support has been appreciated.” He’s practically skipping. “A sport that you apparently have experience with.”

Sam rubs at the back of his neck. “Ah, yeah, I’ve skated once or twice.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Once or twice? You were saying things like nollie and rail.”

“Oh man, yeah, that trick was sick!” Steve shoots him a look and he sobers. “Okay, I may have been a bit of a skater back in my day.” Steve keeps staring. “Maybe more than a bit. And I may still have a board that I take out once in a while.”

Steve shakes his head. “You think you know a guy.”

“Hey! It worked out pretty well for you today. And if you tell Tony about this, I will actually murder you.”

“Can’t have him knowing that the only real adult on the team is actually a fourteen year old boy.”

“Skateboarding is not just for teenage boys, okay, it requires just as much practice—” he catches Steve holding back a laugh and glares. “You’re talking a lot of shit for someone who didn’t speak once during that entire exchange.”

Steve considers being embarrassed, then remembers that he might see Bucky tomorrow instead of next week—Bucky, who called him pretty—and grins instead. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I’ll be so smooth.”

Sam shakes his head, chuckling. “You’re a mess,” he says kindly.

Steve nods happily in agreement. “Yeah. Wanna grab some bagels and tell me about your sordid skateboarding past?”

Sam looks at him fondly. “Yeah, Rogers, let’s go grab some bagels.”

+++

The next morning, standing beneath the Manhattan Bridge at the entrance to the park, Steve is feeling considerably less chill about the whole thing. He convinced Sam not to come embarrass him, but he could really use the moral support right about now. There are more people in the space than there usually are in the morning at the piers, including a rowdy group of pre-teen boys whooping as they speed around. He can see Bucky, Nat, and Clint on the other side of the park.

This park is completely different from the one at the pier. It’s all blocky formations and stairs with handrails. The bowls that Bucky seemed to live in over there are nowhere to be found. Rather than feeling removed from the city, this park is aggressively urban, the loud buzz of traffic overhead and gritty, cement ledges and ramps covered in graffiti all around. Steve watches Bucky skate up a low pyramidal formation and spin his body while his board does a complicated twirl beneath his feet. He lands smoothly. It’s somehow more impressive than the large, uncontained moves that Steve is used to seeing from him.

Whatever the trick, Steve decides that he is tired of watching Bucky do it from behind a fence. He walks onto the lot and makes his way around the perimeter.

He can do this. The redhead, Nat, wouldn’t have asked him to come for no reason. And Bucky called him pretty.

Too busy psyching himself up as he almost reaches his target, Steve almost misses that two of the kids have collided and are now careening out of control and flying directly towards him. At the last moment, his reflexes kick in and he grabs each kid with one hand before they can slam into him or the fence. The open Mountain Dew that was in one of the kid’s hands, however, is a lost cause. Hands full of teenage boy, Steve can only watch as the bottle arcs up, spraying liquid directly at him. As soon as they’re out of danger, the kids jump into action, apologizing profusely.

“Oh man, I’m so sorry, dude!” Their other friends run over. “Man, that would have been such a spill! You really just grabbed us! That was rad!” Steve’s thin, white shirt is soaking wet. He’d wanted to show off a bit, but the Mountain dew has pushed him right past “a little too tight” and into obscene. He absentmindedly consoles the boys, but his attention is fully focused on Bucky. Bucky, who had been taking a water break, looked up at the commotion, saw Steve, and promptly started choking.

Steve hurries into a jog for his last steps over, ready to continue the heroics with a heimlich maneuver, but Clint is already slapping Bucky on the back as Bucky chokes out that he’s fine. Until he looks up from where he stands hunched over, sees Steve, and begins coughing again.

Steve steps up, hands flailing as he tries to figure out how to help. “Bucky!”

Bucky manages to gasp out, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” Nat is standing a few feet away, looking on and cackling.

Steve watches helplessly until finally Bucky regains his breath and stands straight.

“Steve. Hey.” Bucky turns to Nat and glares before facing back towards Steve. “Didn’t realize you’d be coming by.” He says the words directly at Steve’s chest.

Steve shifts uncomfortably. The Mountain Dew is sticky. “I could, ah, leave?” He reaches up and rubs the back of his neck.

Bucky starts protesting almost before he’s done speaking. “No! No, just a little surprised.” As if he hadn’t just hacked up a lung. Steve’s awkwardness seems to have settled his own. Steve wishes that he could think of a single thing to say.

“I think your shorts are really ugly.”

Except that.

Bucky looks startled, then tips his head back and laughs. It’s one of the loveliest things that Steve has ever seen and the relief almost bowls him over.

“Join the party, man. I have to hide them from Nat so she doesn’t burn them all.” One glance at Nat confirms this. She looks disgusted. Clint is laughing.

Bucky has a black beanie instead of a helmet today and it looks very soft. Steve wants to run his hand through the curls flowing out of it. He doesn’t trust himself to not blurt this out next, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Dude, Steve, nice catch with those kids over there though.” Steve smiles, says thanks, looks down at the ground all coy. He doesn’t see Bucky giving him the biggest cow eyes.

Nat clears her throat in the background. “Hey Clint, don’t you have a spare shirt in your bag?” Clint looks at Steve’s torso doubtfully.

“I mean, yeah but—” Nat digs her Vans into his foot. “Ow, damn Nat! Okay, uh hey man, wanna borrow a shirt?”

Given the pointed look that Nat has turned on him, it’s an easy answer. “Oh, yes please. If you don’t mind.” He can tell that he’s doing the thing where he tries unsuccessfully to make himself look smaller, but he is unable to stop. He peeks at Bucky through his lashes. Bucky is staring at him heatedly. Steve blushes and looks back towards the ground.

Clint pulls a bright red shirt from his bag. The one he’s wearing is baggy on him, so hopefully this one will be at least as large. Steve accepts the shirt and pulls his wet one off. He crumples it up and uses it to wipe ineffectively at his sticky chest.

Bucky whimpers and three heads whip towards him.

“Fuck me, I can’t do this.” Steve stops wiping and his heart drops. Bucky continues. “What the hell, Steve, how are you real? Your—” he gestures wildly at all of Steve. “And your—your face. The fucking smiles.” Steve’s eyes widen. He doesn’t dare hope. Bucky keeps going, his voice rising in pitch. “You know I don’t even ride bowl? I mean I do, but this is my thing.” He sweep his arms around the park they’re in. “I ride street. But you, with your—your fucking eyes. You looked so impressed by the air tricks at the pier, and now I’ve been in the bowl every other damned day.”

Bucky stops, is breathing hard. Steve didn’t understand everything, but he understood enough, and his lips are stretching into a wide smile. Bucky whimpers again. “Get dinner with me. No, coffee. Right now, get coffee with me. Please.”

Steve is full on grinning now.

“How about bagels?” he suggests.

Bucky pops his skateboard up with his foot, grabs it with one hand, and slings his backpack over his shoulder. He’s grinning at Steve in return.

“Bagels sound perfect.”


End file.
